Freddie Mac recently released its U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook for February showing that despite the Federal Reserve's taper activity, long term rates have eased over the past month, providing a chance for some borrowers who are holding older mortgages an opportunity to refinance.

"It appears mortgage rates may have given the market a reprieve for a month or so and provided some borrowers another chance at refinancing, especially those folks that may be holding older mortgages,” says Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist. “However, if rates continue their upward trend, it will be difficult for many families to purchase a home without seeing some income growth. Rising home prices and interest rates along with little to no income growth has resulted in a substantial erosion of homebuyer affordability over the past year. Therefore, jobs and income growth are necessary for 2014 to turn in another gold-medal performance for the housing recovery."

The lackluster labor market report for January resulted in a slow start for the residential sector. Only 113,000 jobs were created, less than the 194,000 per month the U.S. averaged for 2013.

This year has been full of changes when it comes to mortgages. With new regulations and rules being introduced to the industry, mortgage servicing companies have been scrambling to keep up and move forward.

The MBA' 2014 National Mortgage Servicing Conference is being held this week. The four day expo began Tuesday, February 18 and ends Friday, February 21. The event, held at the Hyatt Regency Orlando in Orlando, Fla., brings together some of the industry's greatest to discuss the current mortgage servicing outlook. The expo is also providing effective business practices that will help companies thrive in the current servicing market.

“The mortgage servicing playing field has certainly changed dramatically over the past few years, said MBA President David H. Stevens on Wednesday. “It’s had to adjust not only for companies to conform to the new regulations, but to also remain competitive and viable well into the future. For example, the top 10 servicers of five years ago are not the same today. New players have entered the field while some others are expanding, contracting or retrenching. “

“In a relatively short amount of time, you’ve sustained significant changes and our industry as a whole has been subjected to massive regulations, Stevens continued. “We’ve asked for clarity. We’ve asked for streamlined processes. We’ve asked to reduce the confusion and allow you to do your jobs.”

A majority of more than 100 forecasters says they expect large-scale investors to sell off the bulk of homes in their portfolios in the next three to five years, boosting inventory and potentially contributing to a smoother market ahead, according to the latest Zillow® Home Price Expectations Survey. On average, panelists also says they expected nationwide home value appreciation of 4.5 percent this year, with a steady slowdown in appreciation rates each year through 2018.

The survey of 110 economists, real estate experts and investment and market strategists asked panelists to predict the path of the U.S. Zillow Home Value Indexi through 2018 and solicited opinions on investor activity and federal monetary policy. The survey was sponsored by leading real estate information marketplace Zillow, Inc. and is conducted quarterly by Pulsenomics LLC.

Throughout the recovery, large-scale investors have purchased thousands of homes nationwide, particularly lower-priced vacant and foreclosed homes, fixing them up and keeping them in their portfolios as rental properties. This investor activity helped put a floor under sales volumes during the depth of the housing recession, but also created competition for many would-be buyers and contributed to rapid price spikes in some areas.

Panelists were asked to assess the impact to the market if these institutional investors were to significantly curtail their activity this year. Among those panelists expressing an opinion, 79 percent says the impact would be significant or somewhat significant. Panelists were also asked when they thought these investors will have sold the majority of homes in their portfolios. Among those with an opinion, 57 percent says they expected this to occur in the next three to five years.

Home building is an industry dominated by small businesses around the nation. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reveal the many job categories within the industry and their relative concentrations.

Previous NAHB research has examined the geographic scope of the building industry, as well industry surveys that present a census of builders and associated businesses.

BLS data from the 2012 Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Survey allow reporting the roles workers play in home building. The OES survey defines employment as the number of workers who can be classified as full- or part-time employees. The following profile examines the Residential Building Construction industry group, which includes builders of for-sale and owner/contractor built single-family and multifamily housing, as well as residential remodelers.

Management jobs constituted approximately 9 percent of jobs in the residential construction industry, for a total of more than 48,000 positions. Office and administrative support made up the second largest category, which at just under 80,000 jobs represented 14 percent of sector employment. Sales staff and business/finance roles each made up about 4 percent of home building business jobs, each contributing approximately 24,000 jobs.

Other jobs in home building, generally representing about 6 percent in combination, include architects, lawyers, designers, building/grounds maintenance staff, security guards, drivers, and IT staff.

(BPT) - Home remodel projects don't have to require an extensive budget or look cheap when using less expensive materials. If you're interested in updating the look of your kitchen this year, you can find products and materials that allow you to create a beautiful and stylish home without paying a high price.

The trick to finding these products and materials is keeping an open mind, says Summer Baltzer, interior designer and former host of HGTV's Design on a Dime.

"Most homeowners are surprised by how reasonable kitchen redecorating can be when they use and reorganize existing furniture and cabinetry in new ways, or by taking a new look at how technology has improved the products their grandmothers had in their kitchens," Baltzer says. "We can save money without skimping on style, using what is already there and bringing back what has worked for years with a new look."

For example, laminate was the kitchen countertop surface of choice "back in the day." Today's laminate has evolved to improve its style - looking like real wood, stone or tile. Wilsonart Laminate has many new designs that look and feel like natural stone, like granite or marble, as well as wood, making visitors to the home think they're seeing the authentic material on surfaces like countertops, tables and even walls.

Mortgage credit availability increased in January according to the Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI), a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) which analyzes data from the AllRegs® Market Clarity® product.

"Overall, mortgage lenders and investors slightly expanded credit offerings in January on net, but this represented the combination of two divergent trends,” says Mike Fratantoni, Chief Economist at MBA. “First, the market continues to adapt to the new QM regulation by eliminating products that do not fit inside of the QM box. This tightening is being offset, both in the market for higher balance loans, where lenders continue to loosen terms for jumbo loans, and in the refi market, where more lenders are offering streamline refinance programs."

Fratantoni continued, “The Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Survey showed that mortgage credit standards loosened somewhat among larger institutions, but tightened for smaller lenders. The data underlying the MCAI is predominantly from larger, wholesale lenders and investors.”

The MCAI increased 1.85 percent from 110.9 in December to 113.0 in January. A decline in the MCAI indicates that lending standards are tightening, while increases in the index are indicative of a loosening of credit. The index was benchmarked to 100 in March 2012. If it had been tracked in 2007, it would have been at a level of roughly 800, indicating the credit was much more available at that time.

For more information, visit http://www.mortgagebankers.org.

Freddie Mac recently released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing averaged fixed mortgage rates largely unchanged following a week of light economic reports.

"Mortgage rates were little changed amid a week of light economic reports. Of the few releases, the economy added 113,000 jobs [PDF] in January, which was below the market consensus forecast and followed a slight upward revision of 1,000 jobs in December,” says Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, Freddie Mac. “Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 6.6 percent, which makes thirteen consecutive months without an increase."

According to results, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.28 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending February 13, 2014, up from last week when it averaged 4.23 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.53 percent.

Additionally, the 15-year FRM this week averaged 3.33 percent with an average 0.7 point, unchanged from last week. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 2.77 percent.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) recently requested that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) withdraw a proposed rule that would drastically lower the permissible exposure limit (PEL) of crystalline silica for the construction industry.

The rule also requires impractical medical surveillance of construction industry workers, extensive and costly record keeping processes, and restrictions on certain construction site work practices, which contradict existing safety procedures.

“The real problem here is that OSHA doesn’t understand how this rule would work on real world residential construction sites,” says NAHB Chairman Kevin Kelly, a home builder from Wilmington, Del. “Before this rule moves forward, OSHA needs to work with us and our members to craft something that is pragmatic, workable and actually improves construction industry workers’ health and wellbeing.”

OSHA has determined that a rule is needed to substantially reduce the risk of serious disease from exposure to airborne concentrations of silica dust. This, however, runs contrary to data from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that shows a sharp decline in the incidences of silicosis in recent decades. To date, OSHA has not explained how drastically lowering the PEL will effectively reduce the current number of silica-related illnesses and deaths.

As such, NAHB is recommending that OSHA use the existing PEL for silica in construction until a comprehensive study demonstrates that the PEL must be made lower for legitimate health reasons. NAHB has also advised OSHA to focus mandated control methods on silica-generating tasks – within the construction industry - that have been proven by silica exposure monitoring data to generate high levels of silica exposure above the existing PEL. In addition to the drastic 80 percent reduction in the PEL, NAHB believes the rule is economically and technologically unfeasible for the industry to comply with. OSHA has estimated that the rule will cost the industry approximately $511 million to implement, however, analyses show that this number is grossly underestimated. Economic analysts estimate the cost to be closer to $2.2 billion per year, and likely to increase given the present state of the economy.

Given the many problems associated with the proposed rule, NAHB is urging OSHA to withdraw it, and instead, treat it as an advance notice of a proposed rule. Doing so will allow the agency time to collect more comprehensive data and determine how best to align the rule with current industry practices.

For more information, visit www.nahb.org.

Housing is an important source of economic growth. As of the final quarter of 2013, housing’s share of gross domestic product (GDP) was 15.3 percent, with home building yielding 3.1 percentage points of that total.

Housing-related activities contribute to GDP in two basic ways.

The first is through residential fixed investment (RFI). RFI is effectively the measure of the home building and remodeling contribution to GDP. It includes construction of new single-family and multifamily structures, residential remodeling, production of manufactured homes and brokers’ fees. For the fourth quarter, RFI was 3.1 percent of the economy.

While the final quarter of 2013 was effectively tied with the second quarter of the year for the strongest level of RFI after the Great Recession ($487 billion annualized pace), the drop from the noticeably strong third quarter pace ($500 billion annualized) resulted in home building yielding a negative impact on the fourth quarter headline GDP result of 3.2 percent growth. This was the first negative contribution since the first quarter of 2011. Nonetheless, the trend in recent quarters indicates that RFI is growing faster than the economy as a whole. For example, over the last two years, GDP has grown about 4.7 percent, while RFI is up 22.8 percent.

More Americans now believe it would be easy for them to get a mortgage, according to Fannie Mae's January 2014 National Housing Survey results. Consumer attitudes regarding the ease of getting a mortgage climbed 2 percentage points to an all-time survey high of 52 percent, while those who think it would be difficult dropped 3 points to 45 percent. This indicates that consumers perceive that mortgage credit is more accessible. Even though this month's survey shows a more moderate expectation for home price gains within the next 12 months, the view that mortgage credit is more available may allow for continued but measured improvement in the housing recovery.

Consumer attitudes toward the economy also improved in January despite downbeat jobs data for the past two months. The share of consumers who believe the economy is on the right track climbed 8 percentage points to 39 percent, while the share who believe it's on the wrong track declined to 54 percent. Additionally, the share who expect their personal financial situation to improve in the next year increased to 44 percent, continuing an upward trend since November 2013.

"A majority of consumers now believe that it is getting easier to get a mortgage. For the first time in the National Housing Survey's three-and-a-half-year history, the share of respondents who said it is easy to get a mortgage surpassed the 50-percent mark, exceeding those who said it would be difficult by 7 percentage points," said Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae. "The gradual upward trend in this indicator during the last few months bodes well for the housing recovery and may be contributing to this month's increase in consumers' intention to buy rather than rent their next home. The dip in overall home price expectations, though notable, is consistent with our view of moderating home price gains this year from a robust pace last year, while positive trends in perceptions about the economy and personal finances over the next year support our view of stronger growth in the broader economy."

Findings:

Homeownership and Renting
-The average 12-month home price change expectation decreased from last month, to 2.0 percent.
-The share of people who say home prices will stay the same in the next 12 months increased 7 percentage points to 45 percent, while the share who say home prices will go up in the next 12 months fell by 6 percentage points to 43 percent.